Will this pleasant, if unremarkable, treatment of a great Hollywood scandal from the silent era help bring Peter Bogdanovich, an iconic director of the 1970s, back in from the wilderness? It seems not. The Cat's Meow was made as long ago as 2001, but has not triggered a revival in the career of the man behind The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon. Indeed, his last production was a dreary TV biopic of Natalie Wood.
So, considering we may not experience another theatrical release by Bogdanovich for some time, we should probably try to enjoy this well-staged costume drama as best we can. It concerns a 1924 society party which took place on a yacht belonging to the newspaper magnate (and inspiration for Citizen Kane) William Randolph Hearst. Those on board included Charlie Chaplin (Eddie Izzard), budding journalist Louella Parsons (Jennifer Tilly) and Hearst's mistress, the actress Marion Davies (Kirsten Dunst). It is revealed at the beginning that somebody will be murdered. The victim is not named, but, keeping in mind what we know of the later lives of so many of the guests, he or she is not too hard to identify.
Until that happens, there is a great deal of scurrying up and down ladders and furtive couplings behind bulkheads. There are enough films which involve people trapped on boats - Knife in the Water, The African Queen, Apocalypse Now - to define a distinct cinematic genre. The close confinement inevitably forces characters into conflict and such is the case here. Chaplin, a notorious womaniser, becomes friendly with Davies and gradually drives Hearst, played by Edward Herrmann as a more indecisive figure than Welles's Kane, into paroxysms of jealousy. Meanwhile, Parsons, whose skittishness cannot conceal the malevolence that would later flavour her notorious gossip columns, tries to win favour with her boss. The novelist Elinor Glyn, played by the perennially crisp Joanna Lumley, observes from the sidelines.
The Cat's Meow has the flat, undistinguished look of a TV movie and never really takes off as drama. But, as a collection of character studies of people we thought we knew, it is rather fascinating. Izzard, never attempting an impersonation, does a good job of representing the conflicting forces of arrogance and insecurity that must surely drive anybody who gets to be as famous as Chaplin was. But it is Dunst - and keep in mind that The Cat's Meow was made before her career properly took off - who really makes the picture worthwhile. Many have written that Welles's depiction of Davies (re-imagined as Susan Alexander in Kane) as a talentless shrew did an intelligent, decent woman a disservice. Casting an actress with such a complex charm as Dunst in the role could be regarded as a gesture of apology from Bogdanovich on behalf of the directing fraternity.
